The
British are a quota of foreign volunteers in Syria among the largest
in Western Europe : more than 300 people in January 2014, probably
over 400 in April1.
Since the beginning of the war in Syria, the British authorities have
arrested three men suspected of participating in networks of
recruitment and referral of volunteers for jihadist groups2.
The British case recalls unpleasant memories, including that of
Bosnia. Attention is drawn to the British volunteers at the time of
the kidnapping of a British journalist and another Dutch, July 19,
2012, which are eventually released by a group of rebels who helped
them enter Syria. However, among their captors, is a dozen of
British, including a doctor of the National Health Service, Shajul
Islam, from Bengali origin, intercepted on his return to the country
via Egypt on 9 October. Other arrests took place in January 2013,
including that of Shajul brother, and a man who converted a MAC-10
firing white to an operational weapon. Najul Islam, that is his name,
would have provided the financial support of the journey of his
brother and his accomplice, who was arrested with him, and had also
conveyed in Syria night vision equipment , telescopic sights and
other sensitive materials. In another case, Nassim Terreri and Walid
Blidi, two Londoners of Algerian origin, are killed in Darkoush, a
few kilometers from the Turkish border, March 26, 2012. Both belonged
to the British brigade Hisham Haboub, from the Free Syrian Army :
they are killed when they opened fire on a convoy system that
responded to their fire ; another British of the same group
being also injured in the battle.
The
British are in fact found on many battlefields of jihad from
Afghanistan. The so-called "Londonistan" community had also
produced radical preachers capable of influencing the British youth,
to push elements to join al-Qaeda and to commit the attacks of 7 July
2005 in London. Since the Arab Spring, however, it is the Arab exile
communities, through their links with their countries of origin,
which have become important, as in the case of Libya and Tunisia, or
even Egypt shows. It is estimated that at least 13,000 Syrian exiles
in the UK, part of which provides funds, organized convoys, also
feeds the pool of volunteers. But as we have seen, the British
strictly speaking are also coming in Syria. There are at least 30.
Sudanese community in west London talking about 21 men already
trained on site, and there would have been departures from the
Moroccan and Somali communities. Syrians as a preacher of East
London, Abu Basir al- Tartusi, which was not the most radical, are
also left to fight in Syria. There are also among them Mustafa
Setmariam Nassar, a veteran jihadist theologian from Afghanistan
arrived in London in the 90's, which had supported radical groups in
Algeria before returning to Afghanistan and being arrested by the
Americans in 2005 in Quetta, delivered to the Syrian authorities, who
have released him in February 2012. Surur bin Muhammad Zain al-
Abidin Nayif in connection with two Saudi dissidents, Saad al- Faqih
and Muhammad al- Massari, helps fund insurgents. Salafi theologian,
he returned to Qatar in 2004 and then organizes the financial flows
to some rebel groups.
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| A droite, Abou Basir al-Tartousi.-Source : http://mrc-tv.s3.amazonaws.com/sites/default/files/video_thumbs/118558/118558_0001.jpg |
Type
portrait of British volunteer is the following : a native of
Southeast Asian young man between 20 and 30 years , fairly well
educated, and who has links with individuals or groups with
international relations. Motivations are more a solidarity ummah
(defending « Syrian brothers ») and are facilitated by
easy access to Syria via Turkey and the absence of a speech that
would prevent young Muslims targeted to leave for jihad. However,
Syrian fighters recommend volunteers to not make their own way in
Syria, but first to contact networks or armed groups to facilitate
transit3.
November
20th, 2013, Mohammed el-Araj, west London, is the second
British to be recognized dead in battle in Syria by authorities4.
Dead in mid-August 2013, he spent 18 months in prison for protesting
violently in front of the Israeli embassy in London in 2009. He lives
in Ladbroke Grove, West London, and he was born in a British Airways
flight, then raised in the United Kingdom. He was training to be a
mechanical engineer before his arrest. According ICRH, el-Araj was
linked to al-Nosra and ISIS and have fought in one of its groups, or
an associated group, in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. His family
is of Palestinian origin. One of his friends have also died in Syria.
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| Mohammed el-Araj.-Source : http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02741/mo_2741147b.jpg |
February
6, 1914, Abdul Waheed Majid died in the explosion of a suicide bomber
vehicle in Syria, during the failed assault on the Aleppo Central
Prison, under the banner of al- Nosra and under the name of Abu
Suleiman al Britani5.
This is not the first. However, it was linked to al Muhajiroun group,
Crawley . He was in contact with members of these radical circles
since the late 1990s and early 2000s. This death is worrisome because
the man has waited almost 15 years of activism and engagement before
leaving to the Syrian battlefield , and he was known from
intelligence agencies6.
At least 10 British citizens have already died on the field of battle
Syrian. Two Britons still in Syria, Hassan Mahdi, a former student of
a Catholic private school, and Muhammad Hamidur Rahman, an employee
of a small business, talk with supporters on a social network based
in Latvia, Ask.fm7.
Below,videoof the attackonAleppoCentral Prisonby insurgents,February 6 2014.At16:00you can see theBritishsuicide bomber whowill take a truckfull of explosivesonthe door of theprison topave the way forattackers.
According
to ICSR, in January 2014, at least 50 British left in Syria have
returned to their country. Among the volunteers, many young men of
Pakistani, Moroccan, Tunisian and Libyan origins. While most
departures are individual, networks organized around mosques can
contribute to funding and local contacts. Sharia4UK, the
network, led by Anjem Choudary, in particular, made propaganda for
recruitment. Born in 1967, from Pakistani origin, Choudary studied
medicine at the University of Southampton. Eventually he became a
lawyer, then rallied Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, the founder of al-
Muhajiroon prohibited by the British authorities, and founded al-
Ghurabaa also prohibited, before launching Sharia4UK, banned
in 2010. In May 2012, he comes to the Netherlands to control the
start of Sharia4Belgium, which recruits for jihad in Syria.
Bakri was born in Aleppo in 1958, joined the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood and radicalized in Lebanon. Arrived in England in 1986,
he founded a branch of Hizb al-Tahrir, an extremist Lebanese
organization that wants to establish an Islamic caliphate. In 2005,
fearing arrest for his radical position on September 11, 2001, he
took refuge in Lebanon. In an interview Nov. 27, 2013, he asserts
that Choudari is its emir for the United Kingdom8.
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| Anjem Choudary.-Source : http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47110000/jpg/_47110018_-4.jpg |
British
who have left to do jihad in Syria are also involved in propaganda
for their cause via video. In the end of March 2014 , it is the case
for one of them, from ISIS. The man, who has a London accent, claims
to have already managed to get 3 or 4 British in Syria via Turkey.
The video is shot west of Hama, and one sees such a technical with a
quadruple ZPU 14.5 mm machine guns. Another Briton also spoke about
jihad, and another at the same time posted on Twitter a slogan
inspired from the famous "Keep Calm" and modified
with a "and support I.S.I.S". Another British jihadist, Abu
Dujana, 19 years old, encourages teenagers in the UK to come to wage
jihad on social networks such as Ask.fm9.
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| Source : http://www.waislama.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Keep-Calm-and-Support-ISIS.jpg |
In
April 2014, a footballer, who wanted to play for the British club
Arsenal, of Portuguese nationality, is recognized on these
propaganda videos. Abu Isa Andaluzi had come to London to play in the
prestigious club after growing up with a famous footballer. This man
would actually be Celso Rodrigues Da Costa, who lived in Leyton, east
London, with his two brothers. He probably participated in training
sessions where Arsenal oversees recruitment. British
intelligence believe that at least two other Portuguese living in
London went to Syria, one would be in Aleppo. A group of British from
west of the capital recently posted photos where you see them
alongside Yilmaz, a former member of the Dutch army questioned by the
media in his country of origin, and which now forms the Syrian
insurgents in a military-style training . Da Costa encourages, in his
video, the Muslims of Ukraine and Crimea coming to wage jihad in
Syria ; even more surprising, he even addresses women10.
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| Abou Isa Andulazi.-Source : http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/multimedia/dynamic/00434/STN060704_434731k.jpg |
Deghayes
Abdullah, 18, came from East Sussex, and died in April 2014 in Syria.
He joined his two brothers, one of whom was shot in the stomach at
the same time that he was killed, despite the movement of his father
in Turkey to prevent him to go in this country. The injured brother,
Amer, was the first to go, for humanitarian action at first, but
quickly took part in the fighting. Abdullah, however, is the nephew,
like his brothers, of Omar Deghayes, a former Guantanamo detainee,
arrested in Pakistan in 2002 by the Americans and prisoner until
2007, and who now lives in Tripoli, Libya. Before dying for the
Syrian jihad, Abdullah selling sporting goods in an Adidas
shop in Brighton. As Peter Neumann, from the ICSR, is saying, the
profile of Abdullah Dehayes is different from other British
jihadists, because he speaks Arabic and has family ties with the
Middle East and North Africa, while most British in Syria come from
southeast Asia and do not speak Arabic11.
1Foreign
fighters from Western countries in the ranks of the rebel
organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in
Syria, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,
3 février 2014.
2Raffaello
Pantucci, « British Fighters Joining the War in Syria »,
CTC Sentinel, Volume 6 Issue 2, février 2013, p.11-15.
3Shiraz
Maher, « ICSR Insight: British Foreign Fighters in Syria »,
The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, 15
octobre 2013.
8Foreign
fighters from Western countries in the ranks of the rebel
organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the global jihad in
Syria, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,
3 février 2014.